


flesh and spirit keep colliding

by Ahavaa



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Horror, claire temple will keep everybody alive goddamnit, disaster-at-law matt murdock, everyone tries really hard, foggy nelson: emotional superhero, karen page: secretly a reporter, matt murdock: actual blind dude, meta thinly disguised as fiction, the mcu is fucking creepy, tony stark is a capitalist nightmare, unreliable narrators
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 09:58:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3932545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahavaa/pseuds/Ahavaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>from the kinkmeme: <i> any character, any form of body horror. I don't care. Go for ur life.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started this prompt focused on the idea that Matt Murdock, ninja vigilante, is after everything is said and done Still Really Truly Blind. 
> 
> And then I got to thinking about what it must be like to live in the MCU if you aren't a genius billionaire with seven suits of armor or a god with a magic hammer. My conclusion was: teRRIFying, it would be fucking terrifying.

It must have started before Claire, but Matt didn't know. He didn't have any idea, until she told him. 

She'd whistled, after he'd gotten the shirt off. Not a good sign, but she'd seen him with worse. 

"How many stitches, d'you think?" he'd asked, thinking: well. 

"Oh! Um. Five, maybe?" The latex gloves snapped against her skin. "That's got to hurt, though, how long has it been like that?" 

"About forty-five minutes. I called you because I can't reach back there; it's not that bad, it's just a pain." 

"Matt," Claire said. "No. This." And instead of poking the ugly split over his shoulderblade, she poked him in the shoulder, where it joined his chest. It hurt a little - there was a mostly-healed cut there, he thought - and he'd strained both shoulders two days ago. There'd been a shipping container, three very angry men with guns, and a packet of what had probably been cocaine, based on the weird headrush he'd gotten, that had ripped before getting knocked into the water after he'd misjudged a flip. One of the nice things about working in a tiny office with Foggy and Karen, all on their own, was that there were no drug tests; some things were just too difficult to explain. 

"What about it?"

She started breathing faster. Sweating a little, too. "You should go to the hospital, probably," she said. "You're not playing tough guy. That really doesn't hurt at all, does it?"

"No," he said. He ran his own hand across the skin - dry, smooth, faint dip of scar tissue building up, nothing unusual - temperature and texture all what should be there, there was no reason for Claire to be upset. "No, Claire, what does it look like? It's not infected, I could smell that, what's up? There's nothing here."

"You don't," she started. "Um. I'm a nurse, we like it when we poke you and you say ow. Go to the - I know, I know, you're allergic to hospitals, but - come up with an excuse to get checked out this week, yeah?" 

"What's wrong, Claire?"

"Probably nothing. If you can't - if there's nothing to smell, I just think." 

He left through the window. Claire, like almost everyone, didn't really understand how sensitive he was. She closed the window and waited, sure, but even a block away he smelt the stinging bleach and heard it glugging into a bucket.


	2. Chapter 2

The thing was, Matt didn't have time to go to the hospital. (The thing secretly, more honestly was: there was no reason for Matt Murdock, blind defense attorney, to be covered with bruises and half-healed, hand-sewn lacerations. The thing was, Fisk was a monster who owned half the cops in the city, and Matt didn't know if Fisk owned any doctors. He assumed he must, in a vague sort of way, but Matt had no idea how to tell who was clean and who was dirty. He couldn't exactly drag a doctor into an alley and threaten to punch the truth out of her.) 

The nightmares had stopped, at least. 

____________

 

Foggy looked up just in time to see Matt making his way to the coffee machine, one hand in front of him with the fingers spidered. Matt didn't grope his way around, per se, but he did sometimes - look, with his hands, for anything unexpected. It was lucky that Foggy had looked up when he did, too, because Matt had pushed his jacket back, casually, and - and shit, was that _blood_ soaking through Matt's _shirt_? 

Foggy's always been a multi-tasking sort of guy, which is why he thought _don't let Karen see_ and _when the fuck is Matt going to tell her_ and _why is he bleeding this time that idiot_ and _if I can't talk him out of it i'd better buy him some dark shirts_ , all in the time it took to stand up and grin. 

"Let me save you from yourself," he said, to Karen's immediate "hey!" 

"C'mon, I'll buy you a coffee, walk with me," he said, coming in to Matt's elbow, blocking Karen's sightline of the - how much blood did it take to _bleed through a shirt_ , Foggy hated his life, he hated - he didn't hate Matt, but sometimes he sure as fuck hated _Daredevil_. And it was bizarre and terrifying that Matt would turn into him, smiling, giving that goofy Matt-Murdock-Friendly-Asshole that Foggy had known for years, even though Foggy could see the blood. There wasn't a trace of pain on Matt's face. "We'll get one for you too, Karen, you don't deserve whatever's growing feet in the pot over there." 

It was very fucking hard, sometimes, to think about how well Matt lied. Harder when he thought about what Matt had said about heartbeats: if Matt could hear him lie, could Matt tell when he was afraid? 

Looked like it, at least, because Foggy _knew_ he was freaking out, and Matt's smile had faltered, just the tiniest bit, one eyebrow going up in a silent question. 

"You two just want an excuse to get away from these zoning permits," Karen said. She smiled; god, she was beautiful. 

"Partners perogative," Matt said, smiling, and let himself be pushed out the door. 

The second they were through and it was shut, Matt dropped the smile. Foggy didn't know if Matt consciously changed his voice or if it was just something that happened, Murdock and the Daredevil, but as he let Foggy chivvy him through the building and down into thank god the alley where no one was camping out this afternoon, he said "Foggy - what - why are you afraid, what's wrong, what happened," good, ok, so yeah, Matt could always tell when Foggy was afraid. 

"You're _bleeding through your shirt_ ," he said. 

" _What_."

"Your shirt! Your shirt! is! covered! with blood! how do you not feel that!" 

Foggy covered the entrance to the alley, watched Matt fumble at his stomach. Saw him hit the red, red, wet patch, and recoil in shock and - confusion? 

"What kind of _ninja senses_ don't give you the heads up that you're bleeding through your shirt -"

"Wait," Matt said. He'd unbuttoned the shirt, pushed it aside to reveal his - 

"What," Foggy said. His head hurt. This couldn't be _right_. Sure, there were - bruises - one over his shoulder that had formed an ugly and ominous grey-blue-black constellation - and the scars from that one night when Foggy had found Matt in his apartment, but there wasn't anything wrong with Matt's torso, it was just Matt's slightly hairy stomach, ridiculous abs, no - no cuts, no wounds, no nothing. 

Under a patch of shirt that was absolutely soaked with blood. 

"I don't get it," Foggy said. "What are you - ew, ugh, don't _do that_ -" because Matt had rubbed his fingers in the blood and was sniffing them, actually sniffing - "do not put that in your _mouth_ , augh, why is this happening."

Matt's eyes were tracking, rapid and unfocused; he finally looked almost as upset as Foggy felt. "It's not my blood," he said. 

"What does that even _mean_ , why do you _know what your blood_ \- of course you do, of course, have I mentioned that I hate your life yet?" 

"Foggy," Matt said, and he reached out; Foggy was still getting used to how very fucking strong Matt Murdock, secret blind vigilante, actually was: "Foggy, it's _not my blood_ , this is not my blood, where did it _come from_?"


	3. Chapter 3

It had been a bad day all around, Foggy thought: he should've known better, but obviously the worst thing to say to Matt Murdock, asshole and vigilante, was "you should," even if you followed that up with "go to the hospital about the mysterious human blood that soaked your shirt in the middle of the day, haha, because _that is not okay_ ," because that was a guaranteed way to a) start an ugly, pointless fight in an alley, and b) ensure that Matt would not, in fact, go to the hospital. 

When he'd gotten back to the office, missing 1) Murdock, b) any kind of coffee at all, and c) his cool, obviously, Karen had taken one look at him and declared a half-holiday. ("There is no point," she'd said, "in hanging around the office when you and Matt are fighting and pretending to work. Everything has to get done over again after y'all make up." 

"Y'all?" he'd said. 

"Buy me a drink," she'd said.) 

They'd settled at Josie's. The TV hummed quietly in the background; a reporter and an official Stark Industries spokesperson huddled by the waterfront, in the wind. They'd somehow moved on from Foggy bitching about Matt (while carefully editing out the...vigilante crime-fighting parts) as a cover for worrying about Matt, to worst date nights. Karen had a shot and a half of something clear out of a bottle missing the label, and Foggy had been drinking beer.

 

\---------------------------

Matt hated fighting with Foggy. He'd woken up the next morning feeling stuffy, a little congested, and a little sick at the thought of going to work. They'd had fights before (of course) but now, this particular dynamic, to know that Karen was watching and aware of their interplay - it made him feel ashamed. 

I want to be good, he prayed, sometimes, and if I can't be a good person then let me do good, God, that's - what I want. 

(He knew, too, down in the deepest part of him, that he'd walked away from Foggy with a coat over his bloody shirt, because - how could he go to the hospital about that, after everything that had happened, Foggy still trusted authorities over Matt's judgement, and that - 

\- that hurt. Sometimes too much to stand still and bear, honestly. 

He'd gotten to his apartment and the Daredevil had spent all night attacking - _stopping_ petty street crime all over the city. Because there were always muggers, and drug deals, and pretty young women suddenly shouting in distress in Hell's Kitchen? Or because Matt Murdock was angry? But, he thought, it doesn't matter if I'm angry or not; me being angry doesn't put criminals on the street. And it had been a _bad_ night - or a good one, depending on your perspective, he guessed - normally he had to go hunting, but last night? Felt like he couldn't move more than a few blocks without running into something to break. Break up. God, maybe, looking out for Murdocks in the only way He did.) 

He knew he'd be the last one in to the office that morning, so he stopped to pick up coffee for Foggy and Karen. 

So it'd taken him a minute to adjust after he'd opened the building's door and gotten into the stairwell and dropped everything: Karen's black with cinnamon and Foggy's milky coffee all over the floor, fighting the urge to _run the fuck away_ because there were strangers in the office, and _Foggy and Karen weren't there_. 

Shit, he thought; shit, this is Fisk, has to be Fisk, somehow reaching out from a jail cell to destroy everything, every last thing that was important, and of course Fisk was the kind of man to gloat. 

He went through three or four plans, but honestly - fucking honestly, it came down to knowing that he'd have to walk up that stairwell and get information. Fisk wanted _Matt_ dead, Fisk wanted to gloat, hopefully if they were missing they were still alive. And if they were still alive, Matt would go through whoever was in the office until they told him what he needed to know, and then he would find whoever had Foggy and Karen, and he would - he would do what needed to be done to get them back. 

He opened the door. 

A man, at Foggy's desk, and a woman - about Karen's build, someone thought they were funny - at the coffee machine. Two heartbeats, even and slow. Matt had been angry and tired for days, now, but this was enough to tip into rage. 

"There you are, finally," the woman said. She sounded _playful_. Matt wanted to throw up; he couldn't help sneezing, three times. She was wearing Karen's perfume. It couldn't be a coincidence: had someone told her what Karen wore, or had she (and he could barely think it) been in Karen's apartment? Had she been one of the people who _took them_? 

"Hey, look at you, late night?" the man said as he stood up and started to walk closer to Matt, which was just enough to push him over the edge. 

"Don't scream," Matt said. His voice had already dropped down to the basement. 

He'd got the man in a headlock, using him to shield Matt's body, because he couldn't smell metal or gun oil on the woman but that didn't mean she wasn't armed. And in fact, she did take a quick breath like she was getting ready to scream; Matt twisted the strange man's arm up behind his back. "Don't _scream_ ," he said, "or I'll break his arm, don't scream, don't scream." 

The woman started panting; she smelled salty, like - tears? The man's heart was going like a train. Matt sneezed again. 

"Matt," the man said, "Matt, you - okay, bud, Karen -"

"You don't. Say. Her name." 

Crying. 

Matt felt. Fuzzy. A little - "Where are they," he growled. "I don't care about you; _where are they_."

"They're at your apartment," the woman said, _not true_ , "please just - just let him go, don't hurt him."


	4. Chapter 4

Later Foggy would feel guilty about it. Not in a logical way; logically, your honor, the defense recognized that no one was getting Matt Murdock, grown man, attorney, kind-of-prickly-about-the-blind-thing, and 180lbs of muscled vigilante, to do anything that he didn't want to do. But he still clearly shouldn't have left Matt to storm out of the alley on his own, and getting drunk with Karen was probably something that the universe disapproved of. After all, if Foggy had followed Matt out of the alley yesterday, he wouldn't be experiencing the wrong end of the Devil-of-Hell's-Kitchen today. Things would be making sense, instead of lining up with a certain nightmarish logic where sometimes, Foggy's best friend kicked down the office door in his court suit and tie, grabbed Foggy, got him in a really immovable headlock, and started demanding information about _Nelson and Page_ like Karen wasn't staring at him fifteen feet away and thirty seconds away from a screaming panic attack. 

Foggy sympathized. He felt like he was due a panic attack himself; Matt was vicious, and Matt was _very strong_ , and this was what it must be like to be in combat, Foggy, thought; it felt a little like a war movie. Matt was talking about breaking his arm. Matt certainly sounded - and felt - like he would do it. Things felt a little fuzzy; it felt like the firm boundary between _awful nightmare_ and real life had blurred. 

Karen was crying, and her eyes were very blue, and she was standing up, inching towards Matt with one hand out and one hand behind her for balance. And she - _good girl_ , Foggy thought fiercely, because his best friend had gone crazy and was about to break his arm, but Karen was playing along with Matt, she might be sobbing but she said "they're - they're not _here_ , Nelson and Page, they're not -"

At which point Matt growled "you're _lying_ ," sounding furious and betrayed, and did something to Foggy's arm that made him yell because the alternative would be throwing up. 

Which was when Karen brought her other arm out from behind her and pepper sprayed Matt _and_ Foggy full in the face, because the universe was unjust. 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Ridiculously-Hot-McBurner-Phone Nurse walked down the hallway to Matt's apartment, and Foggy saw her coming a second before Karen did. 

Now he had a reason to really panic, because the last time he'd seen her at Matt's apartment, Matt had been lying half-dead on the floor, and if Matt was half-dead on the floor, then he might not be ready or willing to have the conversation with Karen, but Foggy was absolutely going to snitch him out. 

At this point, Foggy even hoped that Claire was there because Matt was unconscious, because the alternative would be - the alternative would be that Matt was conscious and - delusional, or suffering some kind of psychotic break. Foggy wouldn't blame him! He could see it happening if you were a blind guy with a hero complex who felt like you were responsible for all street crime in the neighborhood. Foggy only had to deal with the wave of crushing love that meant he felt responsible for Matt and Karen, and that was almost enough, at this point, to make him want to call a three month long time out. Kidnap Matt and Karen and stuff them on a plane to Hawaii, drive everyone hours up into the mountains where even Matt wouldn't be able to hear people calling for help, and _sleep_. Fruity drinks with umbrellas. Nobody crying for weeks at a time. 

"Hey, Karen, want to run away with me once we find Matt?" he asked, which was enough to make her give him a half-amused, half-confused glance from under all that long glorious hair. She nodded to - Claire? Claire, although Foggy personally had his suspicions that she might be using a fake name. Wasn't that what people did, when they carried burner phones and stitched people up in their houses in the middle of the night? 

"You know her?" she murmured, out of the corner of her mouth. Foggy fought the urge to bang his head against the wall. 

She stopped when she saw them - shit, Foggy saw her recognizing him, which was awful - but she picked up steam again. She wore dark blue scrubs and looked tired, no makeup. Good: sure, she was Matt's friend, so maybe she wouldn't have bothered to put makeup on, but still, it didn't look like a booty call. Hopefully she was the calvary, in this particular situation. They needed a break: they were _due_ a break. 

"Hi," she said. Karen elbowed Foggy, not very subtly. "I need to talk to Matt?"

"Join the club," Foggy said, trying to telegraph "DON'T GIVE IT AWAY TO KAREN" with his eyebrows, which hurt his whole face. "He's not home or he's not answering the door, which is great, because earlier today he was really - not okay." 

"I have a key," she said, short and flat, which made Karen's eyebrows go straight into her hairline. Even Foggy would've been a little bit impressed, if he hadn't known about the - creepy after-hours bleeding-to-death bonding rituals they'd apparently gone through. "Why do you look like you've been maced?"

"I maced him," Karen said mildly. 

"Right," Claire said. "I don't - right."

Matt, Foggy thought. Oh no, Matt. 

"Oh my god," Karen whimpered. He leaned into her and she curled around his arm, shaking hard enough for him to feel. "Where did it all - come from?"

There was blood on Matt's sheets - not a lot, but the bed was unmade and it wasn't clean. More worrying were the prints - even, unhurried footprints tracked across Matt's floor. In a perfect world - in a good world - they would've been made with mud or dirt or fucking _strawberry jelly_ , Foggy didn't care, but they did in fact look like. Blood. Unless it was just Foggy, jumping to the wrong conclusion. 

Matt didn't keep enough food in the apartment, generally, to let anything go bad, but there was a bad, sweet smell strong enough for Foggy to smell. 

Which was a _disaster_ , he realized, belatedly, because if something was strong enough for him to smell, Matt must have - not noticed, or stopped caring. Would Claire know? 

"You two need to not touch anything right now," Claire said. Her mouth was tense. She pulled gloves and a paper mask out of her bag. "I'm saying this as a professional." 

________

Karen sighed. "We need to talk about Matt," she said, "and I need you to not stonewall me."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Foggy said. "I think I still have milk up my nose, by the way, I cannot believe you maced me in the face."

She gave him the look of Sad Disappointment, which could've probably killed lesser men. "Look, I get it. You're his best friend, you guys have been joined at the hip forever, it took me a minute to figure out you weren't actually dating -"

"- hey! we could be dating! I'll have you know I'm very good at picking up people much, much hotter than me," Foggy said. 

"- but I spent a _lot_ of time with Ben before he." She shook her head, pressed her lips together. "Before he _died_ ," she said, careful and precise. "And I watched what he paid attention to, and what kind of questions he asked, I guess? I'm not mad at _you_ , Foggy."

"Good," he said, thinking oh no, time to deflect, "great -"

"I'm sorry to hear it. Who was Ben? How did _he_ die?" Claire asked, from where she was poking in the trash with a mask hooked over her nose and mouth. 

"A friend. A reporter," Karen said. "Not - not like this." She shook her head, wrapped her arms around herself. "OK, now I'm mad, Foggy, do you think I'm _stupid_? Matt is always "walking into doors" at night when we're not around - which is the only reason I didn't think you were beating him, by the way, that is the worst excuse -"

"Oh no," Claire said, looking up suddenly. "Wait, what, _that_ was your guys' excuse? My god. Don't say that at the hospital, it triggers two or three procedures and you're going to get a _lot_ more attention." 

"Yes. _Thank you_ ," Karen said. 

"Who are you again?" Claire asked. Foggy couldn't see her mouth through the mask, but the corners of her eyes had crinkled up. Karen looked up, and the tension in her shoulders relaxed as Claire got - lucky Claire - the full-on truly pleased Karen Page smile. 

"Karen," she said. "I'm their secretary. We. Um. We - fight crime? together? It sounds stupid but Fisk, we got him, _we_ did it, that's why it's going to trial." Even though the day had stared shitty and looked to definitely get shittier before it ended, the pride in her voice was apparent. Foggy could relate; it was still new enough - unreal enough - that thinking about it send a zing of ridiculous, nervy delight through him. 

Claire smiled at _Karen_ , then, slow and considering, and said "I guess I owe you a drink, then," and Foggy tried to control the simultaneous heart attacks. 

>>>>>>>>>

"I don't know, I can't find anything," Claire said, finally. "Which would be the worst possible outcome here, if you two were wondering. Mr. Nelson -"

" - my god, Foggy, please," 

"- Foggy. Do you know where Matt's been over the past few days? We've - oh my god, HIPAA, ok, look, we've seen some _very worrying cases_ and I need to know, honestly." She grabbed her hair and pulled. "No, don't look at Karen, look at me: honestly. There's some _freaky shit_ happening right now, it's not just affecting your friend, and I need to know everything that you do, please."

"Like I was about to say," Karen said, like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, "Matt spends a lot of time getting badly hurt on a weird schedule. I've heard that voice before; kind of hard to miss the part where Matt goes crazy and starts talking about breaking people's arms ." She folded her arms, and whoah, Karen might have said that she wasn't mad, but Foggy knew mad when it was glaring at him. "I have no idea how a blind man runs around like a ninja rescuing people all over the city, but that's not important. Where's he been? I think _secrets_ are less of a priority than -" she flung an arm out - "blood all over the place and - and -"

"oh thank god you figured it out," Foggy said. OK. Sue him; he'd never make it as a spy. "Shit, Karen, I - I have been _telling him_ and _telling him_ that this is not the thing anyone appreciates being kept in the dark about -"

And she gave _him_ the full Karen Page grin, all the way up to eleven, and said, "OK fair is fair, I didn't _know for sure_ until right now." And then she deflated - what Foggy wouldn't give to keep that smile on her face - and pulled her shoulders up a quarter inch. "Sorry?"

"We have got to get you in the courtroom, you'd kill it," he said. 

"What do you mean," Claire said, slowly, "'Matt went crazy'? Crazy how, exactly?"

"What kind of freaky shit are you seeing at the hospital?" Karen asked. 

"No," Foggy said. "no no no, we are all friends here, I declare it. No scooting around each other like we're on opposing sides in the courtroom. Claire, Matt didn't - seem like he recognized us, today."

Claire frowned, and then she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "You maced Foggy," she said. "Did you intend to hit him, or was that an - did Matt seem aware to person, place, and time?"

"What kind," Karen said, patiently, "of freaky shit, exactly?"

"No," Foggy said, to Claire, even though it hurt to say it out loud. It went against everything he'd ever known about Matt, because no matter what - drunk, concussed, bleeding out, nothing like this had ever happened before. Foggy had, until today, known that a constant of the universe was that Matt would always know it was Foggy. "He didn't - recognize me. He has literally always recognized me."

"Lawyers," Claire said. She looked worried and angry. "We're seeing two or three - very sick, disoriented people, which is - one thing, maybe, fine, sure, but we have been inundated by lawyers for Stark Industries, and I really wanted -" she shrugged. "Matt. Masked guy. Either/or. I wanted someone to _help_ me, because they don't care about a couple sick people in a Hell's Kitchen ER."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...the plot, such as it is, oozes forward. matt is having a _really bad day_.

Matt had never been pepper sprayed before; he'd never considered it. Somehow, in the time with Stick, it hadn't come up, and Matt had been, he now realized, unbelievably lucky that everyone who'd come across the man in the mask had gone for the more obviously lethal strategies. Given the choice, he'd take a kick to the head or a knife to the ribs _any day_ , because this was - this was almost unbearable. 

He might not actually be dying, but it felt - it felt like his face was fucking melting off. He'd stumbled into an alley - nothing came through clearly, he had only the vaguest impressions of _buildings?_ \- _brick_ , once he'd crashed into it, something tall and hot with the sun. 

He'd thrown up. He'd thrown up _a lot_ , at first, and then he'd groped along the brick of the alleyway until he'd found the rough metal of a fire escape, and he'd pulled himself up the ladder, hoping to get onto the roof, into the wind, away from - from people. 

He'd thrown up _while climbing_ the ladder. He was pretty sure there was vomit on him; the only lucky part of the whole experience was that he couldn't smell anything but burning, burning, aching heat. His nose was running violently, but it didn't matter - every breath he took seemed to bring more burning particles into his lungs. Breathing hurt. Not breathing hurt. 

It had _not_ been better on the roof. It stayed the same; snot came out of his nose, and his eyes burned, and his mouth hurt in slightly different ways when he left it open to gasp for air or when he closed it because air made everything worse. Matt hadn't known that he could hurt this much without passing out for this long. 

And then he heard - noise, something, he couldn't tell, a new noise - people? were people on the roof, he had to _get away_ \- 

Someone grabbed him; he swung at them, but there was absolutely no power behind it. 

"Aw _shit_ ," somebody - male? young? who _cared_ \- said, "fuckin - they _maced_ him -"

"I told you somebody was out here on the roof -"

"Jessie, you go get the milk, all the milk, _run_ -"

"yeah, yeah, some white guy got maced on a roof, that's not trouble at all, shit, Tonio -"

"Eh, buddy, I get it, you never pissed off a cop before, you gotta - ow! fuck! - you need to _chill the fuck out_ -

"- balls on him, _I_ wouldn't be fighting -"

"yeah you got a crush, great, shut up and help, a-hole -"

" good girl, Jessie, you stand way the fuck back baby girl -"

\-- and then someone had him in a headlock and someone else poured something wet and cold and thick on his face and he could've screamed because it _stopped hurting_. 

A second later he realized that it still hurt, just - it felt like the wave had finally crested. 

"Yeah, man, I _told_ you so," somebody said, gentle and calm like they were soothing a kid, and Matt realized that he'd - relaxed. "Right? Yeah. Look, don't freak out if you can't see anything just yet, that's normal, that happens too, yeah? It'll go away once we get this shit outta your eyes."

"The fuck kinda white boy are you?" one of the other voices asked. "Look, my gran has the teargas squirtbottle, we can bring him back to my place if he doesn't try to kung fu anybody else." 

"No," somebody else - young? female? - Matt was mostly just breathing, at that point - said. "Nah, he's gonna throw up again, I'll get it."

And a little bit later, someone tipped his head back and said, very gently, "OK, eyes open, mouth open, swallow after I give you some, yeah?" 

Whatever it was was strong enough that he could taste - chalk? Chalk, probably, he thought, and like the milk, that helped immensely; it brought the screaming air-raid sirens in his head down to the level of car alarms. Persistent, and painful, but - but no longer consuming. 

After about twenty minutes - Matt guessed, probably - he felt like he might be able to speak. The muscles around his eyes still spasmed unpredictably, and his nose and mouth felt chapped all the way down his throat, but it was _bearable_. 

He still couldn't smell or taste anything but burning and week-old milk, but he was pretty sure that there were three or four people on the roof with him. (Two male voices and male-shaped blobs, he could hear that much, and either one or two medium-child sized blobs with female voices. Even that much took more concentration than he'd had to use in _years_.) 

Then something so bizarre and terrifying happened that Matt didn't have the words, it was his eyes, it was his eyes, this was _worse_ than the pepper spray, he didn't - it was a completely different kind of burn that - that - that _didn't hurt as much_ when he put his hands up over his eyes? 

"Whoah, hey, don't rub," somebody said, catching at his hands, and - and it came back, that burning, aching, stinging - but he was blinking rapidly, blinking over and over and over, and it felt like when a building had bad acoustics and the echoes made everything sound strange, but in his _eyes_ \- 

"Man, fuck, he better not be _dying_ , is he dying?" 

\- and then he was blinking the tears out of his eyes and. and. and he couldn't stop hyperventilating. 

" - my eyes," he - gasped, really, because - 

"Holy shit, man, don't - I thought you were gonna stroke out. It's coming back, though, right? Thank fucking fuck, dude, okay, how many fingers?"

"Some real shit, man, my cousin dated that one girl, her aunt's from Turkey, knew somebody who went _blind_ blind on tear gas, you don't fuck around with this shit."

_Coming back_ , Matt thought, and it hurt like nothing like he could remember and it was nothing like his dreams - this wasn't - and he started laughing, hysterical and utterly out of control, because _that_ was the new pain, that was it, impossibly, unbelievably, it was the blur of sun and blobby shadows of - moving shadows, were those - _people_ on the roof? Was he seeing _people_? "Only three of you," he said, and talking _hurt_. "I - I - see three of you."

And then threw up, again, and even though the bile burnt like nothing he'd ever felt on his chapped nose and mouth and throat, it gave him an excuse to close his eyes for at least two minutes. 

______________

He managed to get a walking stick from one of them, and then managed to talk himself out of an armed escort to the nearest hospital. The leader - Tonio? - of the three of them, hadn't sounded more than twenty or twenty-one, impossibly young, had been very worried. Matt supposed the hitting, and the kicking, and then the hysterical laughter, had been enough to set any reasonable kid's alarm bells jangling. The only lucky thing had been that although Matt hadn't been able to think of one logical reason for a grown man to be maced so badly that he couldn't move on top of a building at three in the afternoon, none of the kids seeemed particularly surprised or concerned. 

("Cops," Tonio had said, and Matt had heard someone else spit. "Half of 'em are dirty and the other half are useless, man - wait, hold on, I got a washcloth, careful now.") 

But he couldn't have born to be around other people, because - because his eyes. Were. 

They'd put him in the building's elevator with someone's walking stick and someone else's very soft and well-worn t-shirt, because he'd vomited all over the clothes he'd started the day in. Which was kind of them, and until he was alone Matt thought about that with singular focus: they were kind, they were children, they did not deserve to have to babysit a hysterical man all the way to the hospital. And then the minute he was alone in the elevator, Matt fought himself very fiercely for about thirty seconds; the urge to simply huddle in the corner and have a screaming panic attack was surprisingly strong.

Foggy and Karen, he thought, and that was true, they had to be - he had to find them. He had to - he pressed the button to stop the elevator (and heard the cables creaking) and took a deep, careful breath. Put one hand in front of his eyes. Moved it away again.

Lighter. Darker. 

Lighter. 

Darker. 

What the _fuck_ was going on? 

It wasn't going away, and at this point, Matt couldn't have honestly said whether he wanted it to or not - it hurt, he had the worst kind of headache - and it wasn't as if he could _focus_ , but - but things got lighter when he didn't have his hand in front of his eyes, and darker when he put a hand in front of his eyes, and all he knew for sure was that something like that was - impossible. Could he be _hallucinating_? Whatever the - the woman, the woman build like Karen - had sprayed him with had acted like pepper spray or tear gas, of course, but could there have been - he didn't know, _something_ in it to - 

This was ridiculous, he thought. Chemical exposure had _destroyed_ his eyes, but there was no chemical on this green earth that could possibly undo the damage. He sneezed, three times, and then stopped, because - 

\- because. Because when he'd gotten into the elevator, it had been playing a faint acoustic song - something old, something with guitars. He hadn't paid attention to what song, particularly, it was. It had stopped, though, and in the enclosed space of the elevator, Matt's own breathing sounded loud and shaky. 

And then - 

_oh, well_ , he thought, _thank god, it is a hallucination_ \- because the elevator started talking in a mild, professional, British voice, which was clearly something that twenty-year-old elevators didn't and couldn't do, so - so that was a relief. 

_MR MURDOCK_ , it said, _PLEASE REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE. AUTHORITIES HAVE BEEN NOTIFIED OF YOUR LOCATION AND ARE ON THEIR WAY TO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE._

A little distressing, sure, but in the grand scheme of things, this was not that much worse than everything else that had happened that day. Sure, he was now experiencing auditory and - and _visual_ hallucinations. Clearly whatever the woman had sprayed in his face was more than just pepper spray, but _whatever it was_ was stronger than anything he'd ever heard of. 

But - 

He put his hand in front of his eyes, again. 

Darker. 

Lighter. 

Darker. 

He heard the motor of the surveillance camera whirring as it moved. 

He'd never heard the surveillance camera in an elevator move before. 

Matt Murdock made the executive decision that if there was the slightest chance the elevator was really talking to him, he wanted to be at least three miles away before whatever "help" arrived. So he nodded, and stood up, and closed his eyes, because every time he moved the blurry light shifted and went through his head like daggers. "OK," he said, "I understand." 

_DO NOT BE ALARMED_ , the elevator said. 

"No," Matt agreed. 

The walking stick was surprisingly heavy, thank god, but blunt: it took three solid hits to shatter the camera lense. The elevator was old enough that it did, in fact, have a ceiling access panel that could be removed from inside. It took ten minutes to get it off and hoist himself up into the elevator shaft proper, mostly because he kept forgetting to keep his eyes closed. 

_MR MURDOCK_ , the elevator said, as he started climbing, _I CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS COURSE OF ACTION. IT IS VERY UNWISE._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...ok so: never personally been pepper sprayed, never been maced?  
>  official first aid goes: irrigate, irrigate, irrigate eyes/mucus membranes with water. street-wisdom from activists who have been teargassed goes: milk or 50/50 maalox/water will irrigate _and_ soothe the irritation, which means it will hurt less and you'll be on your feet faster. 
> 
> leaving all politics aside, my personal belief is that the people who would be most prepared to handle a medical emergency like matt's in a neighborhood like hell's kitchen, full of dirty cops, would be young people who weren't white?
> 
> i am not the first person to think that matt murdock's personal nightmare is at least partly "my eyesight comes back and my senses go wonky," but it's a _really cool_ idea. don't think i really did it justice yet, but who knows, i may edit later.


	6. Chapter 6

By the time Foggy and Karen and Claire got back to the hospital, the press had descended in a cloud. 

Claire had taken one long, dubious look at the news crews in the parking lot, and then demanded Foggy's blazer ("-because I'm wearing _scrubs_ and I don't know what's going on and I don't want to look official -") and walked them round the back. She'd called someone who turned out to be a janitor to unlock a side entrance for them. 

"If I let you talk to the most lucid one - Aaronsen - you need to not know me," she'd told Karen, very seriously. "This is me fired if anyone finds out that I let you in here, are we clear?"

It turned out to not matter in the slightest, after all, because once they got to the hall outside of Aaronsen's room, they found no less than eight lawyers and Tony Stark, _actual Iron-Man Tony Stark_ , sitting on the floor with his legs out, blocking the hall. 

"Finally," he said. "Sheesh, we've been waiting for you crazy kids to catch up to the rest of the group for hours."

_________

"Pepper," _Tony Stark_ said, apparently to thin air; Foggy couldn't even see a headset. Apparently when you were a billionaire who spent your life inventing fancy toys and driving a robot suit full of missiles around, you didn't bother with a bluetooth. "Pepper. I'm being threatened by infants, I don't even remember what you say to this, what's the procedure here?"

"Oh my gosh, that's right, you're in your - fifties?" Karen said, winning smile firmly in place, although Foggy himself knew that that particular quirk to those perfectly groomed eyebrows meant nothing but Bad News. "Hi, Mr. Stark, I'm Karen, it is _fantastic to meet you_ , are you really _Iron Man_? I am a huge fan." 

Foggy bit his cheek, very hard, because Karen was good at this. 

"Yeah, what did you say your name was?" Tony Stark asked, giving her the most obvious slow-pan-up-and-down that Foggy had ever seen, reports had not been exaggerated. 

"Karen," she said. "You should really buy me a drink -"

"No, don't think so," Stark said. "I mean. I'll buy everyone a drink, it's been that kind of day, but you're in your twenties, god, the kids these days. Karen: twenty years ago absolutely, I would be putty in your hands, but the thing is your friend over there isn't mad enough that I'm treating you like a piece of meat so you two are clearly up to shenanigans." He grinned at one of the gorgeous, stone-faced lawyers who filled the hallway. "Do people still say shenanigans?"

She didn't respond; her smile was small, and tight, and very professional. 

"Anyways. I'm here to collect my tech, obviously, and -"

"Your tech? Wait. What _tech_." Claire said. "Does this have anything to do with Private Aaronsen?" 

"It's a little buggy," Stark said, "but hey! I didn't mean to release it, it got _stolen_ , some idiot fucked with my designs, _my_ tech is not going to - aw, Nurse Hottie, don't give me that holier-than-thou do-gooder face, sweetheart, my lawyers are going to write the kid a truly enormous check, he's never seen so much money in his life, he won't have to work for ten years, I think that's enough to make up for a few hours of -" his lip twisted, briefly, "incubating some unfriendly nanobots, right?" 

"He's going to need skin grafts," Claire said. "And Dr. Hendersen isn't sure about the degeneration in the optical nerve, it looks like your bugs deliberately attacked the -"

"That sounds like a HIPAA violation," the closest lawyer said. "I'm sorry, I didn't -" and she ducked to check Claire's ID badge "Nurse Temple, right, but I'm afraid I don't see why you're sharing the details of Private Aaronsen's medical condition with - no one here is authorized family, are they?" 

Claire ignored the woman completely. "He spent three hours _screaming for his mother_ ," she said. "She was in the chair next to him. She kept trying to hold his hand and he kept crying; he _couldn't recognize her_." 

"Look," Stark said. He looked - slightly uncomfortable, for the first time. "First gen bots are never perfect, right, the controlling AI sometimes gets confused about what constitutes damage and what should be repaired, _that's why we're not in production yet_ , it's - I would never have put them out like this. They're baby robots. They just don't get people yet, they _will_ once I work out the kinks." 

Foggy has never wanted to punch someone in the face quite so hard. He wouldn't get away with it, but Karen - they should come up with a signal, he decided, for when he needs to get Karen to punch people in the face. Nobody suspected her. 

"Anyways! All right, hot blonde and not-so-hot blonde, you're with me, we're walking -"

"I am _not_ with you -"

"You are," Stark said, still cheerful, still calm, "because we gotta talk about the last of my rogue babies, who are currently stuck in your friend's body."

The PA system said: _Sir, I located Mr. Murdock in an elevator in Hell's Kitchen, but upon making contact, he destroyed the camera with a cane and crawled up into the building's elevator shaft. Unfortunately, there were no cameras on the roof and I have since lost track of his location._

" _What_ the shit was that!" Karen shrieked, and Foggy agreed, he absolutely agreed with Karen, because - because the PA system should not. That was _not okay_. 

"See, there's my problem," Stark said. 

"Your problem," Foggy said. "Your problem is that your - your - your _fucking creepy_ and might I add _totally illegal_ spyware was stalking my best friend and lost him? Boo hoo, thanks for saying it out loud, you're gonna be sorry, man, I'm an actual lawyer, your problem is how much money I'm gonna sue you for -"

Stark started laughing. It was bright. Cheerful. Which made it worse: Foggy had never felt quite so much like he was in the presence of an actual cartoon villain. "The Pentagon has been trying to get access to JARVIS for the last fifteen years," he said. "I've got 'em tied up in litigation for the next five years, and every time they look like they're getting close, I throw another batch of very expensive lawyers at the problem. You can try - hey, I'm a sucker for a good underdog story - but smart people know when they're beat."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahaha! uh. 
> 
> man, i love all the Iron Man movies, right? and I personally love Tony Stark as a character and I love the way RDJ plays him! but I got to thinking.


End file.
